Dr Marloes Kleinjan, a professor of Youth Mental Health Promotion at Utrecht University and the Head of the Trimbos Institute’s Youth and Wellbeing program, has joined the five-person panel.
In its capacity as an advisory body, the board provides expert advice that helps inform the KSA’s policies and decision-making process.
Kleinjan will replace the outgoing Dike van de Mheen, the Head of Department Tranzo at Tilburg University.
As Kleinjan’s experience suggests, she will primarily offer insights regarding the mental health of young people, as well as mental health more broadly, and how to identify and mitigate risk behaviours.
To this end, Kleinjan has recently been involved in studies concerning the intersection of gaming and gambling.
She commented: “This subject certainly deserves attention. Games sometimes contain elements of gambling that can be harmful. We need to monitor this closely in order to gain more insight into it — it is a relatively young field of research.”
Moreover, Kleinjan’s work at the Trimbos Institute devotes a great deal of attention to studying how people spend their digital time and for how long in relation to other activities.
“Digital balance is about organising your time in such a way that you feel good and healthy. With and without digital media, such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and games. The right balance is different for everyone,” added Kleinjan.
Chaired by Ronald Prins, the advisory board’s members hail from a broad range of disciplines. Excluding Kleinjan and Prins, its members include Theo Schuyt, a professor of Philanthropic Studies at VU Amsterdam; Han Moraal, the Eurojust National Member for the Netherlands; and Guda van Noort, a professor of Persuasion and New Media Technologies at the University of Amsterdam.
